Star Buddies
by Charon the Sabercat
Summary: Because meeting aliens for the first time can't be as easy as "Hey, weird-looking dude, welcome to here. Have a burger." The story starts kinda dark, but it'll get lighter and sweeter, kinda like coffee, only backwards.
1. A Very Short Prologue

Star Buddies

Author's note: Don't own nothin'.

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><p>Angela started losing sleep around the beginning of May, right when reviews for finals started. She ignored the restless nights, chalking her slow mornings and dragging thoughts up to stress. She credited the unexplained pinpricks on her skin to mosquitos, as did the rest of the kids in her class. It was odd, sure, but it wasn't like it had never happened before.<p>

The nightmares that started happening a week later had never happened before. She dreamed she was strapped down, her vision blurred and her throat weak as she was touched and rubbed with garden hoses, her hair blown around with electric fans and her skin singed with light bulbs. She struggled against whatever held her, trying to plead "Come on, cut it out" to her non-violent, non-invasive, but still unknown captors.

Each night, the nightmare would end the same way. A caring hand would stroke her hair, cooing a calming word into her ear.

"Row... row... row..."

She would giggle to herself, finishing in her mind "Gently down the stream..." before she slipped into a deeper sleep. She would wake up the next morning, still tired but excited, and tell her friends about her "awesome dream where she was abducted by aliens and nothing bad happened, it was great!".

The next week, she stopped having those dreams, but her friend Carrie started. Then Mike. Then Albert, and Sherry, and by the time summer had started, Cedric begun having the dreams too. Cedric didn't take to the nightmares as well, calling his friends in a panic saying they had actually happened, he had woken up, he had seen the aliens and they'd knocked him out and-

He was terrified, and Angela only thought it fair to give Cedric a break. She called in a long-overdue favor and got Mike to stay over at Cedric's house for a night; if nothing else, would would make the younger kid feel more welcome. A year ahead of his other friends, he'd moved to a new city, a new school, a new system... Mike and Angela were the only good friends he had made that year, and it was the least they could do.

When Cedric woke them up, it was midnight, and they weren't on his floor.

They were in a lab.


	2. Wake Me Up

Star Buddies

A note: Still don't own nothin'.

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><p>The place was built like a cheap movie set, with temporary cloth walls and equipment with wheels on the bottom. Past the cloth walls, she could see concrete and antique video game cabinets, and the one visible window showed stars and a full moon outside. Around her, she recognized nothing. Angela was surrounded by metallic boxes and sparking diodes, monitors making fiddly beeping noises and flashing warnings in a language she didn't recognize. To her right, Mikey was laid out on a cushioned gurney, unconscious and tied down to the bed with glowing purple straps... the same ones that were fixing her to her own, metal bed.<p>

Angela felt her throat sinch up even before she realized that she was scared out of her mind. Over her left shoulder, Cedric motioned to his mouth, zipping his lip shut, before beginning to work at the straps at her wrist. She swallowed a few times, trying to find her voice. Failing that, she flattened her hands against the bed to give Cedric room to work. Cedric freed her arms quickly (amazing, considering he was missing his glasses). Her fear gave way to a cold shock.

Catching Cedric's eye, she mouthed "Are we alone?"

Cedric shrugged. With his glasses off, he couldn't see well enough to answer. His fingers never stopped working, finding the near-invisible buttons and latches for the energy straps. Angela step herself up as a guard, sitting up straight to keep an eye out for... whoever this place belonged to.

Her feet were free. Cedric clutched at her shoulder with a clammy, shaking hand; and when he whispered, his voice cracked. "I can't wake up Mike."

"Do you know where we are?" asked Angela.

"No. Could you find out where we are if we got outside?"

Angela thought for a bit. "Maybe. If we're still in town."

Cedric whimpered pathetically, gripping her shoulder so hard his fingernails dug in. Angela reached over and gave him a one-armed hug, patting his back as softly as she could to not make a noise. "You're doing great. You're doing really great, just be brave, okay?"

"Okay."

"Undo Mike, and then you grab his feet. We'll carry him out of here, just like health class."

Cedric felt his way over to Mike's gurney. Angela followed, just barely standing on her shaking knees. The lab was eerily quiet... it seemed like there should be more... chatter.

Time went by too fast, crawling along while Angela kept watch and Cedric did his best to free Mike by touch. At some point, the building's air conditioning kicked on, reminding the two conscious kids that they were still in their pajamas. The two of them shuddered, clutching themselves to protect their chests and suddenly very aware of the cold concrete floor beneath their bare feet. Even if they were in the same country, much less the same town, they would be one female teenager and one tweenaged boy carrying an unconscious teenaged boy through town at night in their pajamas and barefoot...

Mike was free.

Cedric lifted him upright, sighing with relief and mouthing "He's breathing!" to Angela. Angela grabbed her wrist and made a loop out of her arms, and Cedric slowly eased Mike onto her. She'd learned to do this in health class (thankfully with a goofy, uncooperative Mike to acted as limp as possible to make her life harder), so with a slow lift, she had Mike balanced. Cedric stepped back, lining himself up with the beds, and waved her to his side.

"A few times, I woke up when they were putting me in the straps."

Angela wanted to interrupt, wanted to ask who "they" were, but almost instantly remembered garden hoses and pinpricked skin and "row row row", and her blood went cold.

"They came from this direction," he whispered, pointing to the right between two of the cloth walls. "And there were engine noises coming from over there... that's probably-"

She gasped. "Where there's a vehicle. Good idea. Think you could start it?"

"I dunno. Can you drive it?:

"I dunno. Do we have a choice?"

Cedric gulped. Angela leaned onto him, unable to hug him properly, but he only shook harder, curling into himself in terror. Mike's head fell limply onto Cedric's neck. "You're been doing great this far. You haven't panicked, and you haven't set off any alarms. I bet you could do it."

"I've never gotten this far before. They always come back and tie me down."

Her blood went cold again. Shifting Mike's weight, Angela gave Cedric's shoulder a bump with her own. "Then we need to start moving now. Keep your hand on my back, and I'll lead for now."

Cedric's endless string of "thank you"s came out in a breathless wheeze as Angela walked. With one gathering breath, she broke through the cloth walls...


	3. Grab On

Star Buddies

A note: You guys don't mind if I don't say that I don't own this fic every single chapter, right?

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><p>Angela instantly recognized the building; it was Zap's Arcade, the place where her parents met. It had been open until a few years ago, when a small earthquake cracked the foundation of the wharf district and rendered the whole area dangerous. She'd never liked the place, personally, too many kitschy old video games with no motion controls or DLC. Knowing where she was, though, made this whole situation a lot better. At worst, they were dealing with a very weird, but very human kidnapper who she could call the police on when they got home. No longer scared, Angela quickened her steps and let her feet fall loudly. Cedric yelped in shock and stumbled to keep up with her on tiptoe.<p>

"What are you doing? They'll hear you!"

"Whoever 'they' are, they can't do anything to us now." Angela made her way to the "Employee's Only" door, the only door facing that general direction and, most likely, the door leading to the employee parking lot and a car. "We'll be back home by morning... as long as you can work the pedals of their car."

"It's not a car! I could tell by the noise! I-it was more like a Cessna airplane engine crossed with a jet ski!"

As she got closer to the door, Angela could hear something mumbly-sounding coming through the walls. She stepped backwards, stopping Cedric in his tracks and nearly losing her grip on Mike.

They waited. The mumbles continued, stacatto, but droning. She pressed her ear against the door. They weren't coming from the other side, from the sound of it, but from an adjacent room. Angela jerked her head to the door, and Cedric opened it as slowly as he could.

On the other side was the employee garage and three motorcycles, on yellow, one blue, one red. They were monstrously huge things, nearly as big as a compact car with massive exhaust pipes and thick handlebars, but no wheels. Cedric twisted the doorknob and shut the door silently behind him. "I think I recognize those."

Meanwhile, Angela felt her stomache dissolving into nothing. Arms were falling asleep from having to carry Mike this whole way, and his butt was slowly slipping between her legs. Hover-cars were pretty standard, if expensive, but motorcycles were too slim to comfortably house the engine a vehicle needed to hover. These... things, these stupid ugly toy motorcycles, probably part of some stupid racing game, were stupid and useless and stupid! "How are we supposed to get away on these?"

She had shouted. Her voice echoed through the garage, each seperate echo pounding against the kids's chests like a sledgehammer. Cedric paled, gripping the doorknob in terror. "SSSHH!"

Angela flinched. "I'm sorry! I didn't realize I was yelling!"

On the other side, voices yelped in surprise.

Cedric made a noise like a weasel getting stepped on and locked the door at the handle and the deadbolt. Angela, weighing her options for one long second, threw Mike onto the seat of one of the bikes and placed herself in front of him, digging her feet into the running board and pushing him upright with her back.

The voices were getting louder, crashing noises coming from inside and getting closer to the door. Cedric leaped onto the front of the bike.

"I'll start the engine, you-"

"The garage door!"

It was still closed. From inside, They slammed into the door, jiggling the handle and screaming unrecognizable words at the doorknob. Angela ran off the bike, heedless of the tiny beads of automotive glass digging into the pads of her feet and throwing open the sliding garage door. The bike (the yellow one) roared to life behind her, and had she not been half-expecting it, it would have given her a heart attack on the spot.

The door began to shake, the doorknob glowing an unnatural purple and taking on a red, wavering energy field. Angela took her original place, behind Cedric and holding up Mike, and grabbed the handlebars just in time for Cedric to start the engine and Mike to wake up.

They peeled out of the garage, banking right and nearly spilling out onto the road. Mike, defying all rules of what he should be able to do in his current state, snapped his arms around Angela and Cedric both, holding them in a protective grip. Angela threw her weight to the opposite side, righting them. (It was something she'd learned in water parks to keep from falling off her inner tube, and thank god she hated getting water in her ears.) The bike hovered seemlessly, too seemlessly, and faster than Angela had ever gone without a windshield in front of her. The wind stung her eyes, nearly blinding her even as she desperately fought for that one little millimeter of space between her eyelids, just to be able to see.

They took off down the side of the wharf, the legs of their pajamas just clipping the wood planks of the guardrail. Cedric flinched with each little catch, causing Mike to hold them tighter. Angela threw her weight to the right again, turning the hover-motorcyle slowly, far too slowly, and sending them hurtling towards main street.

Behind her, Angela heard the sound of a Cessna airplane engine crossed with jet skis.

"MIKE!" she screamed. "WHAT'S BEHIND US?"

Mike must have looked, because she didn't dare take her eyes off the road, not while Cedric was ducked under her working the controls of this completely foreign machine half-blind, by touch, and her best friend of 7 years was half-drugged behind her and yet still doing his best to keep them of them safe, the both of them depending on her to not crash into the buildings on either side of the road. Mike must have looked, because he screamed back, "THOSE THINGS! FROM MY NIGHTMARES! AND THEY'RE ON TWO OF THESE THINGS!"

She would have said more, would have done evasive maneuvers or something, would have turned at the next light because that would have been the police station, anything-

If one of the hover-motorcycles behind her hadn't caught the back of their stolen hover-motorcyle and thrown all of them over the handlebars.

The three kids were treated to the indescribable sensation of falling and not landing. When they opened their eyes, they saw the road beneath them, seperated from their faces by a purple energy field. Cedric started screaming, kicking and waving his arms desperately while floating in place just above Mike. Mike went deathly pale, eyes dilating, the beginnings of shock (just like health class).

Angela saw monsters. They approached the energy bubble on foot, walking in a V formation. Broad, squat monsters with gigantic heads and eyes that reflected light, the monster in the middle holding up the three of them with an energy beam shooting from his left hand.

This was it, then.

They were going to die.

Angela wailed, dread filling her body at the realization that she couldn't hear herself scream. They would all die, in the middle of the street, out in the open and no one would hear them calling for help. Two of the monsters grabbed Mike by the feet, dragging him out of the purple energy bubble and down to their level.

He went slack, falling into their arms, lifeless. Tears pooled in Angela's eyes, unable to fall in this antigravity bubble.

Cedric went next, kicking and screaming for help. Even in her absolute despair, she felt proud of him. Even as he went limp, he was still flailing, lashing out at the beasts responsible for this.

Finally, they came to her. They were blue, dressed in clothes color-coded to the hover-motorcycles. The one in red patted her shoulder, brushing her neck with his long fingers, his skin the texture of a garden hose.

"Row..." he crooned, stroking her hair. "Row..."

Her eyes snapped to his. Brown, she noted. Like Cedric's. Cedric who was now... and draped over the back of their escape bike, being tied down next to Mike like he was some deer they had gone out and shot. Like some trophy.

She wouldn't go out like that. She kept eye contact with this monster, trying to communicate as best she could all her hate, all her fear, all her terror she had experienced since she woke here, all of the suffering her parents and Mike's parents and Cedric's parents would feel when they went to get them in the morning and they were all gone...

The one in red brushed away her tears and straightened out her hair. He... looked sorry. His eyes scrunched in obvious pain, and his mouth moved, nothing coming out. Hopeless. Helpless... apologizing...

Another one, one in blue, grabbed her chin and turned her head away, exposing her neck. Something metalic, cool and rounded, pressed under her ear, right underneath her jawbone.

She fell asleep.


	4. Join In

Star Buddies

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><p>She woke up in Cedric's room, along with Mike and Cedric.<p>

They went home, gave everyone they could find the tightest hug they could manage, and immediately headed to Zap's Arcade.

Mike kicked at the door lock, just above the lock just like he'd learned on Mythbusters. "OPEN THIS DOOR! We know you're in here!"

"If they were in there, that's probably just gonna make them lock the door tighter." Angela crossed her arms tightly to hide the shiver in her arms.

"They might be nocturnal," said Cedric.

"More like they were up all night stickin' us with needles and- and- and probes!" Mike kicked the door again. "OPEN UP!"

"Guys, as gung-ho as I was about this, I'm thinking that maybe we should rethink what we're doing here..." Angela stroked her chin in thought. "You think they peeled out yet?"

"They did have all their stuff set up on wheels," said Cedric. He punched his open palm. "So they could hide their stuff during the daytime, I bet!"

"Those sneaky jerks! I'm gonna punch them in their giant heads until they can't tell which way's up or down!" Mike kicked the door once last time, more angry that trying to break in. "I'm blaming my C in English on you, you sleep-disturbing weird-motorcycle-driving blue thingies! I'm a-"

Mike stopped, totally freezing in place. Angela and Cedric followed suit.

He turned slowly, glancing at something out of the corner of his eye. Angela and Cedric each took a turn looking.

A camera. Two lenses, and they glowed purple. Cedric and Angela each shuddered from the base of their spines up. Catching their distress, Mike took the two in an arm each, leading them in the other direction. "Ah well, I guess we, uh... hallucinated it."

"Uh, yeah!" said Angela. "Mass hysteria!"

"Very small mass hysteria!" Cedric agreed, mindful of the two burning purple spots reflecting off the lenses of his glasses. The camera was hovering behind them, following them.

"I should buy you guys a Quantum burger. I mean, it's the least I could do after- Hey!" Mike bent down, covertly picking up a half-brick. "I wonder who would throw away a perfectly good half of a brick?"

They stopped, lowering their heads in "thought". The camera puttered behind them, slowly creeping closer to the three kids.

"I think... I WOULD!"

Mike turned and hurled the brick right between the floating camera's two lenses. It crumpled immediately, and Mike grabbed it by the middle and stuffed it into his backpack.

They ran. Straight back to Cedric's house they ran, and they locked themselves in his room. Mike poured the spy camera out onto Cedric's bed.

It was oddly shaped, an oblong, organic form with a large "head" where the lenses were. Two solar panels branched out from the "head" portion, one scuffed and cracked from the impact with the brick. While they watched it, it twitched, and six hands immediately closed down on the little monstrosity. One crumpled lense rotated to point to Mike's face.

"We're gonna find you," he growled. (To the camera, to the others, or to himself, no one knew.) "We're gonna find you and you're gonna be sorry you ever did anything to us."

Cedric shivered again, leaning into Angela for comfort. "What are we gonna do if they come looking for their thing?"

"We'll be there. Awake." Mike paused, swallowing the dread growing in his stomach. "We've all seen the movies. No one's gonna believe us unless we have proof."

"This is proof!" shouted Angela.

"This is some guy's school project!" countered Cedric. "We've gotta bring back some of their tech, something humans don't have, like a laser gun."

Mike gulped again. "They have laser guns?" he asked, his voice growing timid.

"They always have laser guns!" said Cedric. "Or we could steal one of their hover-cycles!"

"Either way, we need to get them here." Angela took one hand off of the spy camera and placed it in the middle of the three of them. "In this together?"

"In it together." Mike and Cedric put their hands in, slapping each other's hands, the pain solidifying their union.

They just had to wait.


	5. Take Us Away

Star Buddies

Okay, let's get some inter-species interaction going, eh?

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><p>Night fell. The kids kept themselves awake with a steady diet of Pepsi and fear. They stayed dressed, shoes and all. With all eyes on the window, they waited.<p>

They came at midnight.

Angela grabbed the camera, to hold it hostage. Lights danced outside the window before they landed on the kids's faces. Mike threw his Little League bat to Cedric before snatching up his new aluminum bat. The window wiggled and glowed purple. The three kids tensed on their feet, weapons at the ready.

Before they could move, they were wrapped in the same purple energy field as before. Their arms snapped to their sides, their voices switched off, their weapons fell to the floor.

They all screamed. Nobody heard.

The window opened, slowly, little bits at a time while a little reflective eye peeked in through the crack. Once it was open enough, one of Them climbed through. The one in red, the Brown Eyed One that Angela had glared at, he flipped in headfirst and landed on his feet. With no choice but to look, they looked at him.

He was... pudgy. He was ugly as sin, a weird collection of bits and pieces that nobody on Earth had thought to put together. He had a skeletal-flat nose, bulging eyes, long fingers, short legs... and fat.

Cedric's first thought was "Poor little guy", for the ugly little monster tripped over his own feet and walked with his shoulders hunched. He stopped in front of the kids, ducking his head apologetically and making weird little babbly noises that sounded like a language. If their body language and facial expressions were anything alike, he almost looked sorry that he was about to kidnap them and perform experiments on them... again.

He took them one by one, carrying them over his shoulder and out the window and onto the back of his red hoverbike. He was flanked on either end by two matching monsters, one in blue with a sad expression and one in yellow with a commanding presence. They drove them back to Zapz, flying just over the roofline of the downtown businesses. In a weird way, Mike wished it would be more exciting. All this staying up, all the caffeine and gearing themselves up, just so they could be hauled around like luggage. It felt so anticlimactic. They needed to die with more dignity, darn it!

The three of them were placed on a bed, Mike in the middle, Cedric on his right, Angela on his left. The cloth walls were gone, the machinery in a different configuration, but off. They let the kids sit upright, binding their thighs first together and then to the bed. Their arms were systematically bound behind their backs not at their wrists, but at their elbows. It was uncomfortable, but not painful, and they definitely weren't getting out now without Their permission.

The One in Red shot The One in Blue a look. The One in Blue talked a bit with the The One in Yellow.

Mike was let out of the purple forcefield.


	6. Let's Talk

Star Buddies

... damn, this thing's writing itself pretty fast.

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><p>Mike yelled at Them, of course. They put him back in the purple force field. Angela tried speaking to them more reasonably, softly, so not to spook Them.<p>

They put her back in the purple force field, too. With vengeance, once The One in Blue gathered the remnants of the little floaty camera. She got a hard glare for that.

Cedric stayed quiet. They let him free, the unspoken agreement saying that he wouldn't run away, and haltingly, They tried to explain.

They laid out a series of flat, circular things on the floor, mostly game tokens and coins along with some washers and screws. They pointed to the moon outside, then to one of the smaller circular things.

Cedric nodded, picking up easily. "That's the moon." Cedric gasped. Knowing that one little thing was the moon, the other coins started falling into place. "And the one next to it's the Earth! It's the solar system!"

The One in Yellow thumped his chest with a fist, then did the same with his two comrades. They frowned as they were thumped, but said nothing. With an encompassing gesture to the group of them, he pointed to the coin beside "Earth".

"Mars?" Cedric asked.

The One in Blue parroted, "Mars".

The kids jumped. Mike and Angela tried to speak to each other at the same time, forgetting about the sound-dampening force field. Cedric gasped again. "He can speak English! This is incredible! English-speaking space aliens!"

Mike and Angela were quick to point out that they didn't necessarily "speak" English so much as repeat it, but Cedric didn't hear them. Instead, Cedric was standing up and putting his hands on their shoulders.

"We," he explained. He touched his chest. "I." He pointed to The One in Yellow. "You."

Sharing a look amongst themselves, the monsters- space aliens- Martians?- nodded.

The One in Yellow patted his chest. "I," he said. His voice warbled, the sound reverberating from far in the back of his throat. He thumped his comrades again. "We-" and he made a noise that sounded a lot like "blirdle-irdle-eedle-oop".

The kids laughed. The Martians snarled... and let Mike and Angela go with a flick of their wrists.

They didn't notice at first; instead, the kids fell over each other, guffawing at the weird noise and the surreal situation and the fact that they certainly weren't dead yet. The Martians watched for a little while, somewhere between confused and miffed, before snuffing in disapproval and walking away.

For a while, that was it. The kids felt the kind of awkwardness usually reserved for staying at the households of family members you only saw once, maybe twice a year. They hung around the bed together, sitting on their feet and watching the Martians fiddle with equipment. Occasionally The One in Red would come over and waved, offering them tap water in tiny little green cups. They drank, said their "thank you"s nice and slow so he could learn them, and stayed put.

"... well," said Angela. "Here we are."

"Yep," Mike agreed.

"I wonder if they'd let me keep the money," Cedric wondered.

Mike and Angela glared. "Cedric!"

"I'm serious! What if there's a whole bunch of money and tokens left in the old arcade machines?" Cedric wrung his hands at the thought. "That's gotta be, like, twenty... maybe fifty bucks a machine! In quarters!"

Mike smirked. "Or tokens."

Angela giggled. "Cold, hard, worthless tokens."

"It's a start!" said Cedric. "Maybe they're worth something to a collector!"

"Coldhardworthlesstokens."

"YAH!" The kids jumped back onto the bed, away from The One in Yellow who had snuck up behind him like a total jerk, if they did say so themselves. He jerked a bit, too, throwing his hands up in surprise (three fingers and thumb), but only calmly repeated. "Coldhardworthlesstokens."

The giddiness came back, to Angela first, then the rest. The kids all laughed amongst themselves. The One in Yellow grimaced again, crossing his arms.

"Pretty bird," kidded Mike. "Pretty bird, pretty bird!"

Cedric could barely speak for laughing, but managed "Polly want a cracker?" before collapsing again. The One in Yellow gave up his attempts at communication and walked away, making angry "bwiddly-jorble-gloop" noises.

Following a hard caffeine binge and crash, the kids fell asleep. Mike and Angela remembered nothing, but Cedric later recalled being carried onto the hoverbike by a warm set of arms.

They woke up in Cedric's room, ready for another excursion to Zapz.


	7. Let's Be Friends

Star Buddies

It continues, and I STILL don't own it.

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><p>They banged on the front door to Zapz for at least five minutes, but the Martians didn't answer. Mike and Angela had a short arguement about lock-picking before the little floaty-camera came out of a window, observing them like the first time. They met its "eyes" sternly.<p>

Mike smiled, maybe even smirked, a good and evil smirk. He started to lean down, reaching to pick up half of a brick. "Hey, look, someb-"

"EEPEEPEEPEEPEEPEEP!" The One in Blue opened the front door in a panic, jumping in front of the kids with his arms outstretched. He kept talking, babbling in his burbly language that sounded more like boiling soup than speech.

Mike pumped his fist. "Yes! I knew that would work!"

"Really?" asked Cedric.

"Well... no." Mike shrugged. "But it did!"

The One in Blue made a few helpless gestures to the door, ushering the kids inside. He waved the camera inside with him, giving it an affectionate pat on the back. The kids rushed to their bed out of habit. There was an entire building to explore, still filled to the brim with arcade machines and possibly even the prizes from the ticket booth. They started chatting immediately, making plans about where to explore and what to take home and what to tell their parents when they asked where they got them. The One in Blue only sighed, holding his head in his hand.

With hardly a second to spare, the other two Martians came from nowhere. The One in Yellow shot The One in Blue a killer glare before turning to the kids. "All of you. Goodbye. Now."

"Woah!" Cedric gasped. "He learned to talk!"

The One in Yellow nodded his head. "Learned from TV. Sesame Street. No-"

Cedric gasped in delight, slapping his hands to his face to prevent himself from making any more undignified noises. Beside him, Angela and Mike were making similar happy sounds. He barely collected himself enough to speak. "What's your name?"

The One in Yellow lost in commanding presence quickly. His... eyebrow-like area-of-his-face tweaked slightly. "Er... my name is Bebopaluna."

"Awesome!" he squeaked. "I'm Cedric Barker!"

"Oo, me next! Me next!" cried Angela, raising her hand. "I'm Angela Young!"

"I'm Mike Ellis!"

It was quiet for a few minutes. Bebopaluna had to gesture to his two comrades to talk, which they did after another second of weird looks and pondering. The One in Red shrugged and said "My name is Doowadiddy," followed by The One in Blue stating "My name is Tootyfrooty", which made the kids laugh again.

"Wait..." Tootyfrooty interrupted them. "You, um... you say names... bigger... than now... before."

It was quiet again. Tootyfrooty rubbed his head, struggling to think. Bebopaluna and Doowadiddy stood aside, also thinking but not as hard, while the kids tried to figure out the alien's message through weird syntax and missing words.

"Um... u- oh! Oh! He hasn't heard out last names before!" said Mike. He punched his palm in victory. "I bet that's what it is!"

"Yeah!" Angela calmly explained to Tootyfrooty. "Humans- that's us- we like our names to be short. My whole name is Angela Elizabeth Young, but my friends call me 'Angela'. Same with Mike and Cedric."

"Names to be short... yes..." Tootyfrooty thought again. "My name is... 2-T... short."

Something changed when his name shortened. The inflection was like sounding out a word, and Angela found she liked it better than calling him "Tooty". "Yeah! For short, your name is 2-T."

"My name is Doo-Wah short!" Doowadiddy cheered. "I am so smart!"

"My name is Bebop! Short!" Bebopaluna cried. "I like this!"

They didn't wind up leaving for another hour, the entirity of the hour spent poking at various things in the arcade and going "What is this? Tell me words. Teach me." The kids did eventually find the abandoned prize room, meaning that the Martians knew the word for "inflatable plastic toy squeaky hammer" before they knew the word for "water", but it was a start. The kids left when they were hungry, the Martians offering them some kind of white wormy thing for food in exchange for staying longer. They promised to be back later.


End file.
